Erik is a baseball fan who has been attending baseball games and snagging baseballs regularly since 2008.

9-18-10 PNC Park

Ballhawking wise, today was a tough day for me. It was a Saturday, which means that we have an extra half hour of BP, but it would yield very few opportunities.

The Pirates were missing Lastings Milledge, who isn’t allowed to participate in BP until his strained oblique muscle heals. The rest of the Pirates were doing an awful job of driving balls into the seats.

I got one and only one ball during the Pirates entire portion of batting practice, and it was a Pedro Ciriaco ground rule double that I chased down here:When the Diamondbacks came out, I moved over to center field, as their first two or three groups feature primarily left handed batters.

In center field, fellow ballhawk Nick Pelescak and I were getting out ballhawked by two random teenagers, who kept getting lucky bounces or balls hit right at them. Nick told me, “These d-bags have four combined and we only have three. We need to step our game up.” A bit later, I snagged a ground rule double that took a room service hop right at Nick’s glove. One of the teens, featured here walking up the steps,STATISTICS:Game: 4 balls ( 1 hit, 2 thrown, 1 found )Season: 525 balls (252 hit, 124 thrown, 72 device, 77 found) Games: 82 gamesAverage: 6.40 balls per game2010 Game Balls: 5Career: 1,103 ballsStreak: 178 consecutive games attended with at least 1 ball snagged.Attendance: 25,981Jabs/Pelescak Combination in 2010: 926 ballsBalls needed to break single season record: 19

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